The antiwar Left continues to lament the American involvement in Iraq and support the “morally acceptable” Iraqi “resistance” as a “legitimate expression of Iraqi self-determination” . In doing so, they knowingly align themselves with the forces of darkness. Ansar al-Sunnah, an Islamist Iraqi terrorist group that has pledged fealty to al Qaeda sanctions the operations of the most barbaric nature. Charles Johnson reports on a MEMRI TV translation of the Al-Iraqiya TV program that airs the confessions of captured terrorists. This particular terrorist cell whips, murders, dismembers and guts a captured policeman to rig him as a bomb:
Interviewer: To what group do you belong?
‘Adnan Elias: The Ansar Al-Sunna, sir… We tied (the policeman) up and blindfolded him, and then threw him into the trunk. Then we went to the house of the Emir. We untied his hands and eyes, and then punished him.
Interviewer: How did you punish him?
‘Adnan Elias: We whipped him.
Interviewer: You whipped him?
‘Adnan Elias: Yes, Muhsin did.
Interviewer: And you?
‘Adnan Elias: I didn’t whip him. I just stood there holding the gun.
Interviewer: Go on.
‘Adnan Elias: They told us to take him to the house of Habib ‘Izzat Hamu. We took him out there. We said to him: “Why did you do this and that Why are you after us?” He answered: “It’s out of our hands. We get orders.” Then we were told to bring a knife.
Interviewer: You slaughtered him?
‘Adnan Elias: Yes, sir. Habib ‘Izzat Hamu got the knife. He slaughtered him, and when he was dead, he opened his shirt buttons and cut open his stomach.
Interviewer: Who opened him up?
‘Adnan Elias: Muhsin, sir.
Interviewer: When a doctor performs an operation he wears a surgeon’s mask over his nose and mouth.
‘Adnan Elias: No sir, he didn’t wear one.
Interviewer: He didn’t wear one?
‘Adnan Elias: No sir, he didn’t wear one. He cut open his stomach and took stuff out.
Interviewer: What did he take out?
‘Adnan Elias: I don’t know, his guts.
Interviewer: Weren’t you nauseous? Didn’t you vomit?
‘Adnan Elias: You mean Muhsin?
Interviewer: No, you.
‘Adnan Elias: I was standing a little bit aside.
Interviewer: And he didn’t vomit or get nauseous?
‘Adnan Elias: No, sir.
Interviewer: What is he, Dracula?
‘Adnan Elias: Huh?
Interviewer: Go on.
‘Adnan Elias: Yes, sir. He opened him up, took stuff out, and put TNT and explosives inside. Then he sewed up his stomach with thick thread.
Interviewer: With thread?
‘Adnan Elias: Yes. And a needle. He put the buttons back in place…
Interviewer: He buttoned him up.
‘Adnan Elias: Yes, he buttoned him up. We were told to take him in the car near the square in Tel A’far. We threw him there and placed his head back on his shoulders.
Interviewer: My God!
‘Adnan Elias: 15 to 30 minutes later they told his family to come and get their son. His father came with two policemen. They picked up the body and made no more than two steps – we were standing far away – Ahmad Sinjar pressed the button.
Interviewer: By remote control.
‘Adnan Elias: The body exploded on them, and they died.
Interviewer: So his father and the two policemen died.
‘Adnan Elias: Yes sir, and we took off.
In Afghanistan, women are beaten, raped and murdered for working to better the lives of their fellow citizens:
“Authorities have found the bodies of three Afghan women, one of whom worked for an aid group, who were raped, strangled and dumped with a warning for women not to work for such groups…
” ‘This is retribution for those women who are working in NGOs and those who are involved in whoredom’… The note was found attached to the chest of one of the dead women…
“The bodies were dumped near a road outside Pul-i-Khumri city, the provincial capital of Baghlan…
“One of the three was a 25 year-old woman who until recently worked for a Bangladeshi non-governmental organisation (NGO) involved in providing micro credit, mostly to widows.
“A group calling itself ‘Afghan Youths Convention’ claimed responsibility for the killing, according to a caller who telephoned a Reuters reporter in northern Afghanistan.
The popular meme among leftists and even some very rational terrorism analysts is the American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan fuels the hatred of the Islamists and drives Muslims to their ranks. This is nonsense. The depravity exists in these men’s hearts, and no amount of appeasement, coddling or rationalizations will drive them to act within the bounds of civilization. There is much room for debate on how the Muslim world must be engaged to create an atmosphere of tolerance, but there is no doubt that the animals of al Qaeda, Ansar al-Sunnah, the Taliban or the ‘Afghan Youths Convention’ must be hunted down.
This is exactly what we are doing in Iraq. Efforts to destroy the sinister forces of the Iraqi insurgency proceed. Outside al Qaim, US Marines engaged and killed 12 terrorists of Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq. Civilians continue to provide tips, the latest round led to the arrest of 5 terrorists and their bomb making materials, and exposed a large weapons cache. In Ramadi, the Marines repelled another car bomb attack on their base thanks to the heroism of PFC Bryan Nagel, who destroyed the VBIED (Suicide Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device) while under fire. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles continue to be employed to capture insurgents, and traditional foot patrols net 15 insurgents as well. UAV technology is expected to improve in the future with automated systems that can operate at lower altitudes, allowing for better real time intelligence.
There is hard and ugly work left to be done in this war. The perversions of al Qaeda and other Islamists cannot be defeated without removing the most dangerous members of these groups from society, as there is no reforming the likes of these morally depraved individuals. Iraq and Afghanistan are only the beginning of a long war that spans several continents. Al Qaeda and their Islamists allies count on American fecklessness and even the support of the domestic and international Left to weaken the resolve and destroy the will to fight. This, and not al Qaeda’s military capacity or our ability to engage moderate Muslims in dialogue, is the greatest challenge to victory.
19 Comments
It’s weird that that guy is a member of Ansar Al-Sunnah because Adnan Elias is a Christian Arab name.
The leftr has an impossible task and we should show some empathy for their difficlties. Communism has failed, socialism, in the form of the welfare state, is doomed by demographics and they are losing their traditional power as the gatekeepers of information. All they have left is their comforting knowledge that the United States is the source of all evil in the world. If they admit that the people we are fighting in Iraq are the bad guys, they will have nothing left to hold onto. When faced with changing one’s mind or creating ever more fantastic contructs (often paranoid and deluded) to support one’s world view, many would rather deny reality than accept they may have been mistaken.
And the current president who embodies everything that modern conservatism is about is failing in just about everything including making the tactical mistake of going into Iraq, loading up record debt, failing to properly address the problem of energy prices and coming up with a solution to the social security problem that is no real solution and would add another $3 trillion to the debt.
Modern liberals on the other hand are more fiscally responsible while still believing in free markets, more cautious about foreign policy and use of the military to avoid mistakes like Iraq and believe in conservation and new technology to address the energy and resource problems that demographics are creating and conservatives are failing to address.
Ryan,
You still believe Iraq was a tactical mistake, despite reading dozens of articles on The Fourth Rail?
And where are these so-called ‘liberals’ who believe in free markets and fiscal responsibility? Name a few.
You, as most liberals, have defaulted into a nonsensical rant that merely parrots the ‘fashionable’ view of the moment.
Ryan — take it from someone whose salary was paid, in large part, during the late 1990’s by electric-vehicle R&D efforts.
The problem with implementing alternatives to fossil fuels is not conservative “greed”, or a lack of effort.
The problem is the combination of basic economics with the laws of physics.
If you are willing to live with a car that takes four to eight hours to fill up … and only goes 100 to 150 miles between fillups … we could give you a pure EV right now.
Most Americans can’t afford to live with a car like that … for they need more flexibility in schedule and choice than these limitations allow (or for that matter, what is allowed by public transport), if they are going to maintain their standard of living (and no, that does not equate to a wasteful lifestyle … but a productive lifestyle).
Hybrids are a better solution … whose implementation was slowed down by the Leftist myopia of places like California, that mandated fleet percentages of pure EV’s well before the technology was viable.
Contradictions
As the barbarity and inhumanity of our enemies continues to reveal itself, there is an interesting contradiction at work among our elites.
Iraq was a big mistake. I still think it and finally most people agree with me.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/03/iraq.poll/index.html
Iraq was no threat and had no operational relatioship to Al Qaeda or any link to 9/11. They were in a box and were effectively contained. There is speculation and a theory that islamic fundamentalism will never come from free and democratic societies but there is no real concrete evidence to back up this fact since the same Imams will still be preaching. Islamic terrorists have been born in many democratic and western nations of the world and they still developped these beliefs. What Iraq did was create a rallying point for everyone who has something against the United States like Afghanistan was a rallying point in the 1980s to fight the Soviets. When the war is over, is there any reason to believe that the remaining radicals will not go back to their home countries and continue plotting?
I know a lot of people will use moralism like “he was a brutal dictator” and “mass graves” to defend their point and all that but the job of the US military is to look out for US interests. There are a lot of brutal dictators in the world and we have neither the resources nor the responsibility to depose all of them. The same Baathists are still killing just as many Shiites and Kurds with Saddam out of power as they were with him in power. They are just using different tactics. These Baathists are terrible individual but they were never a threat to the United States like they are now.
Modern liberals believe in free markets. Bill Clinton did and created more jobs than any other president in history. This is the type of liberalism practiced by most mainstream liberals today.
http://www.answers.com/neoliberalism
Ryan:
Here’s my answer to you regarding Saddam — be sure to read the last comment in that thread, too, as it addresses your “no ties” assertion.
Those terrorists you talk about may have been born here … but the brutality that intoxicates them was fermented and distilled in places where such ideas go unchallenged. This kind of fermentation process doesn’t go far in a free society that encourages its people to think for themselves, instead of playing follow-the-leader.
In fact, I could assert that, if anything, the promotion of “victim culture” by the Left has aided and abetted the popularity of the imams in the West, by distorting the perceptions of wannabe terrorists regarding our society.
The distilleries of terror are what we are taking down … and we will do more of the same in the future. (However, keep in mind that we do not need to use lethal force in all cases).
Show me one rights-respecting nation that has invaded another rights-respecting nation (as opposed to taking down a despot). The superiority of rights-respecting/limited-government representative republics is more than theory … it has been borne out in the success and peace of the Pacific Rim, and the failure and brutality of post-colonial Africa.
To limit the GWOT to just “justice” for 911 is the same mistake that gave us 911 itself — a refusal to deal decisively with the enemies of all mankind: those who deny others their inalienable rights in a quest to establish a totalitarian power structure, with them at the top.
What is (and has been for over a year)
happening in Iraq is a war between to sets of foreigners. A. English speakers and their allies and B. Muslims for other muslim countries in Africa and Asia and a few Americans ( Johnny Walker Lindh was (and is)not the only American muslim to fight against us and our allies.) For anyone to call the terrorists “Iraqi “resistance”
Ryan:
Short & Sweet…
The next time you refer readers to a CNN poll to tell them what most Americans think, remind me to pay you a friendly visit and shake you by the collar.
That will be all.
Carry on.
Iraq was a big mistake.
Are you stating an opinion, or a conclusion that can be supported with verifiable facts?
I still think it and finally most people agree with me.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/03/iraq.poll/index.html
And your opinion is now vindicated? Might makes right? A very illiberal attitude.
Iraq was no threat
Don’t be obtuse. Iraq was a threat. It was a question of how much of a threat and what action, if any, should be taken.
had no operational relatioship to Al Qaeda or any link to 9/11.
Maybe. Maybe not.
They were in a box and were effectively contained.
And so I believed until we learned that Saddam was in bed with the French and Russians. Quite a cozy box, if you like snails and fish eggs!
There is speculation and a theory that islamic fundamentalism will never come from free and democratic societies but there is no real concrete evidence to back up this fact since the same Imams will still be preaching.
Did our Founding Fathers require such evidence beforehand that constitutional self-government would work before beginning their bold experiment? How about the women’s suffrage movement and the civil rights movement? At what point in the history of the struggle for human freedom has the certainty of the outcome been a prerequisite for attempting further progress? Or could it that humans are motivated, not by a guarantee of a successful outcome, but by the earnest hope and desire for a better life and a better future for themselves and their children?
Islamic terrorists have been born in many democratic and western nations of the world and they still developped these beliefs.
Then the fault must be democracy. We must get rid of democracy. Death to the infidels! Long live the Caliphate!
What Iraq did was create a rallying point for everyone who has something against the United States like Afghanistan was a rallying point in the 1980s to fight the Soviets.
Evidence, please. Or did you really mean the UN as the rallying point?
When the war is over, is there any reason to believe that the remaining radicals will not go back to their home countries and continue plotting?
Yes, there is: the fact that many of these radicals are now dead. Plotting from the grave is extremely difficult, not that I’ve actually tried.
I know a lot of people will use moralism like “he was a brutal dictator” and “mass graves” to defend their point and all that
Don’t forget the rape rooms and torture chambers. And gassing the Iranians and Kurds. And setting fire to hundreds of oil wells. And dumping lots and lots of oil in the Persian Gulf. And invading two neighboring countries. And attempting to assassinate a former US President. And wiping out many of the Marsh Arabs and their way of life. And…oh, I’m sorry. I’m being moralistic again. My bad!
but the job of the US military is to look out for US interests.
Exactly right.
There are a lot of brutal dictators in the world and we have neither the resources nor the responsibility to depose all of them.
Right again.
The same Baathists are still killing just as many Shiites and Kurds with Saddam out of power as they were with him in power.
Oh really? That’s quite an accomplishment, even for seasoned thugs like the Baathists. What evidence do you site to support this claim?
They are just using different tactics. These Baathists are terrible individual but they were never a threat to the United States like they are now.
Yeah, you’re right. The Baathists have never been in a better position to cause murder and mayhem around the region and around the world. At least those that are still alive, that is.
USMC Vet: The poll was conducted by Gallup, a well respected polling firm which has been accused of having a conservative bias in the past.
Enigma: Yes, a lot of what I said was my opinion generally.
“Iraq was a mistake” is definitely my opinion. Others disagree and history will be the only correct answer (after that people will still probably disagree).
“Saddam was not a threat” was phrased a little incorrectly. Of course he was some degree of a threat but I meant he wasn’t a serious or grave threat which the findings after the war generally demonstrate.
“The same Baathists are killing just as many Shiites and Kurds”–I don’t really have numbers to compare to say it’s the same, more or less but a hell of a lot of people are dying in Iraq right now.
All the radicals will not be killed. Some will and some won’t. It’s not a right assumption to assume that none will escape.
Rod: The main conflict in Iraq is between the United States and some of its foreign friends and the Baathists and some tribalists of the Sunni Triangle and their foreign friends. Many of the Baathists who were fighting have died so they are increasingly being replaced with the foreigners.
Bill: Are you 100% sure that Al Qaeda supports the American left? What makes you so sure? Bin Laden came out on video just before the election when he knew that it would help George Bush. Fighters interviewed in Iraq also said that they wanted Bush to win because he angered the muslim world so much that it improved their recruiting.
Where did I say that, Ryan? What I said is the Left is a useful idiot to al Qaeda, they attack the war and sap the morale by continually harping on issues such as Abu Ghraib, WMD, etc.
EVIL
Michael Moore’s Minutemen are indescribably barbaric and evil….
“What I said is the Left is a useful idiot to al Qaeda, they attack the war and sap the morale by continually harping on issues such as Abu Ghraib, WMD, etc.”
People have the right to dissent, especially in matters as important as war. Without dissent, there’s only one political party, and when there is one political party, there can’t be democracy. Is that what you’re advocating? Democracy requires dissent, especially in war. It’s been that way ever since the Athenians debated whether or not to meet the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC.
Also, don’t blame military missteps or ‘sapped morale’ on people back at home. Blame the commander-in-chief. It’s called accountability, and that’s where the buck stops…not on Joe Q. Liberal. Besides, you sound like an embittered German post-WW1 when you blame people back at home for failures and missteps in war…
If you think the overblown rhetoric is responsible and helps the war effort, far be it from me to tell you otherwise. I am all for reasonable and constructive debate on how to improve the war effort, but what I se from the Left is not it.
I don’t blame missteps on the Left, I blame the Left for using the war for political game at the expense of the war effort. That’s why they are useful idiots.
Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part II
Among The Left Branch Davidians, Part I Part 2 of a series. So we have firmly established that Liberals are indeed part of a “reality-based community,” and that by admitting that, they are conceding (whether they know it or not)…